Open Transcript
0:00:02 – Host
Welcome, welcome, one and all, welcome to the Catholic Experience episode, I think, 24. Recorded live is a February 25th in the year of our Lord, 2024. Thank you, catholic Church. I, of course, am your humble host, the Catholic Adventurer, the one and the only. You’re catching me live on X, facebook and YouTube. You catch me on demand. Throughout so many distribution channels it’s like ridiculous. Anywhere you get podcasts, you’re getting this one. Thank you very much for joining me.
Today we’re talking. We’re going to have some fun. We’ve been doing some pretty heavy shows over the past couple of weeks. Today we’re just going to have a little fun. We’re going to take it easy and relax.
I’m going to do a little bit of a reaction a reaction, I guess, speech, I don’t know what you’d call it, monologue, whatever To Father, something I saw from Father Ripperger. Father Chad Ripperger, known and renowned and famous exorcist. If you’re catching this podcast, you almost certainly have heard of Father Chad Ripperger. I’m going to do a little bit of a reaction segment to a video that I saw of his Not a full video, it’s just a little clip. Then I’ll tell you what I think about it. And then I’m going to do another reaction segment to some poor girl who can’t afford entertainment. Why is that crazy? Why is that crazy? I’m going to explain to you why that is crazy and why it is emblematic of so much that’s wrong in the world and in the church. Ooh, check it.
After that, I’m going to talk to you a little bit about common sense, flux and change. As Catholics, change is a very dirty word for us, but it really shouldn’t be or sometimes it ought to be. Why can that go both ways? We’re going to talk a little bit about that. We’re going to keep it light, we’re going to keep it airy and we’re going to keep it substantial. First, just a couple of announcements. Something very exciting. Well, I hope it’s exciting. Hopefully it’s exciting and not stressful.
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We’re going to get now to a clip by Father Chad Ripperger and then a clip by I don’t know who she is. Maybe she’s a liberal, maybe she’s not, I don’t know, but I can tell you she uses some foul language in the clip. I’m warning you ahead of time. I’m not going to waste my time bleeping that out live. Maybe I’ll bleep it out for the on demand version, but if you’re listening to this live and you hear an F bomb or something from that clip, which you will, please, please, don’t, don’t have a heart attack. Okay, thank you, I really appreciate it. All right, let’s get on with business.
Getting to Father Chad Ripperger. Ripperger, his clip clip from what seems to me either a liberal, lucy, or just an Gen X or Gen Z. Then we’re going to talk about goodness, flux and permanence. I know I make it sound brainy, but it’s going to be relatable. It’s going to be something that I think everybody needs to, can get something out of it. Okay, Father Chad Ripperger is going to be talking about the damage, of the damage that sin does to the human mind. I’m going to be reacting to what he’s saying. That’s the basic, just.
0:05:28 – Fr. Ripperger
People don’t seem to realize too is that sin causes a lot of damage. You know, people have this idea that you know, once I go to confession, my job’s done, I’ve got nothing else to do, I’m good, I’m in the state of grace. That’s not how this works. It’s true that the culpability of the sin has now been absolved and you’re no longer bound by the in the tribunal of God’s justice. You’re no longer bound for having violated his law. That’s true. That that does actually is that it’s absolved in the will. But every time you sin, you darken your intellect, you’ve moved your lower faculties to consider the thing and under the wrong aspect and you disorder your lower faculties. This is why we have to spend time in purgatory, because we’re a mess.
0:06:15 – Host
What I love about the video is how positive and edifying it is. Doesn’t it just make you? Doesn’t it just set you on fire with positivity? Here’s the thing. I like Father Ripperger stuff because I’m half an intellectual. I guess I’m half a scholar, maybe less than half. I’m not entirely left brain or right brain, I’m sort of cursed to be in the middle and that’s how I am with all things related to smartitude. I’m kind of a scholar, kind of an intellectual and mostly an idiot. So I like listening to Father Chad Ripperger, but I also get frustrated as a communicator and as an evangelizer listening to Father Chad Ripperger because he is just so negative.
He’s always so down on people and you can see it in his face as he is talking. He looks like he’s really irritated by the people he’s speaking to because it almost feels like in his mind as he’s talking what he’s really saying is these people are all disgusting, horrible sinners. I mean I don’t even know why they came here. It looks like in his face. It looks like he’s saying that in his head. The other thing that bothers me or concerns me is sometimes he says things that aren’t actually true. I’m not saying he’s lying to you, but sometimes he delivers things as absolutely true. St Thomas says this all the time. That doesn’t make it true. For instance and I deal with this one a lot People who are downtrodden, people who have reached a place of hopelessness in their progress in holiness. Why? Because they happened upon something. Father Chad Ripperger said One of the things that has happened a number of times over the past maybe four years that I’ve encountered. Once I heard that God doesn’t hear prayers if I’m in mortal sin. It just made me stop wanting to pray. I’ve heard that a number of times. Father Ripperger didn’t say you know, st Thomas says if you’re in a state of grace, god doesn’t hear your prayers. St Thomas just says clearly no, absolutely not. Folks, prayer is a response to grace. No one can pray without grace. God is not going to give you the grace and call you to pray if he’s not going to listen to you.
St Thomas Aquinas also said that the immaculate conception was false, that the Virgin Mary was not immaculately conceived. He appears to have changed his mind later. We can confidently say he changed his mind later, but he didn’t say so explicitly. But there are things that he did say that we can reasonably say you know. Later on in his theological career, his career as a Dominican, his ministry as a Dominican. Later on he appears to have changed his mind. But what if he hadn’t? Was he still wrong that the Virgin Mary was not immaculately conceived? Of course he was still wrong. He was wrong when he said it. It’s good that he changed his mind, but if he hadn’t changed his mind he still would have been wrong.
I believe St Thomas also said heaven was empty. At a point I think he said let me stop there. I know he said something that was erroneous about who occupies heaven. I know 100% that he said something that was erroneous. I don’t know what was, so I’ll stop there.
The point is not everything in church thought is actually truth. It’s all rooted, based in something true, but it’s not actually truth, not all of it, not all of it in church thought. I’m talking about church thought. I’m talking about philosophy, not doctrine. Doctrine is all true, so for nothing.
There was another saint who also there was a saint I’m gonna have to research this if I have the time and put it in the show notes there was a saint who had a vision of the Blessed Virgin Mary and this saint said the Holy Virgin told her that she was not immaculately conceived. I’m gonna let that settle in for a moment. Why? Why would this saint said that the Virgin Mary told us? Because sometimes visions get mixed up with a seer’s perception or with a seer’s memory. That doesn’t matter. The substance of what’s being said by the visionary or by the apparition is what matters, not each little detail. That’s for the church to decide and to determine which is so and which can be kind of left aside. That’s up to the church to determine.
the point I’m making is there are things I’ve seen many and heard him talk many times, father Ripperger, and every time I come away from a talk thinking 75% of that was great, every time, every time 75, maybe even 85% of that was great and 15 or more percent was. You should absolutely never say that, father, never, ever say that, either because it’s not actually true. It’s church thought, but it’s not church proclamation. There are other things in church thought that say what you said is not true. Saint Thomas said God doesn’t hear prayers. If you’re not gonna say the grace to God doesn’t hear your prayer. Well, okay, there’s plenty of elements of church thought that say that that’s wrong. So you shouldn’t say that. So every time I hear him talk or I see him talk or I see a clip, I always come away from a thinking that most of the majority of what you just said was great, but there was a large portion there that you should have just totally forgotten about and left that out of your talk.
Father Ripperger’s a great fellow. He’s a hard worker, a great academic, tremendous academic, and I’m not saying that people shouldn’t listen to his talks. I’ll tell you a story. Once I said to Father Ripperger one time there was a book that he had recommended.
I don’t remember this was years ago and anyway I don’t remember what it was but I read it and I found it very difficult to follow. It was a book on meditation, on Catholic meditation. This is before I was actually practicing with everything. I try to understand it before I put it into practice. So this was I think it was the first book I got on meditation. It wasn’t perhaps for beginners, I guess, and that’s okay with me, because I’m kind of beyond that. I need to go a little bit deeper, you know.
But the book was really kind of all over the place and I said to him you know, I appreciate this book. But tell me what I’m missing here, because I finished the whole book and I found it to be not very practical but entirely theoretical. And he said the book was very practical but sometimes people don’t have the intellect required to understand it. It wasn’t exactly those words, but it was something like that. It was sort of an academic way of saying the book is practical. You’re just stupid. Without using the word stupid, I got his meaning 100%. I got his meaning 100%. The book is very practical, but some people I’m paraphrasing, some people don’t have what it takes to comprehend it.
And this is who he is with every talk. You know, there was another time that I heard him talk. This was in oh, this was a sound clip, this was a sound bite, also years ago, and he was telling people how they ought to come up to receive communion and I agreed with everything he said. But I really didn’t like his tone. His tone was such that you would expect that when he was done talking it would be followed by comma UA holes. You should come up, we should come up, in a state of reverence. Your eyes should be downcast, your hands should be folded, comma, ua holes. That’s how his tone came off, and this is my four minute clip maybe and I agreed with every minute of that clip. I agreed with in substance, but I hated how he delivered it. I hated how he delivered it. So I am not saying you shouldn’t watch his stuff. Listen to his stuff. If you can go and see him watch a talk of his in person, go and do that, but be very listen.
I’ve been warning across several episodes of this podcast that there is a cult of Catholic personalities. Please do not be a member of the cult of Catholic personalities, because there are lots of people who are rah, rah, rah, siss, boom, bah, father Ripperger, father Ripperger, father Ripperger and I don’t care who it is. Listen, I’m Fulton Sheen’s man. Fulton Sheen is my spiritual father. I’ve read almost everything he’s written. Half of what I own of his I’ve read at least twice. So Fulton Sheen is my guy. But you know what? I’m not in the cult of Catholic personalities. If it came out tomorrow that Fulton Sheen was involved in some scandal, that wouldn’t rock me a bit. If it came out tomorrow that a third of what Fulton Sheen said was actually false, that wouldn’t rock me a bit, because Fulton Sheen is just a priest to me, or was just a priest. He’s not a star.
My great love and respect and admiration for Fulton Sheen does not reach or does not descend to the depths of how some people love father Ripperger, or love Bishop Barron, or love, believe it or not, father James Martin I can’t believe it either, but it exists or love father this one on YouTube, or father that one with the podcast. I mean, some people really go overboard, you know, and God forbid you criticize this person. Listen, if you criticized Fulton Sheen to me, we could have a conversation and that’s all it would be is a conversation. You know, fulton Sheen was really nasty to work with, which actually, I’ve heard that he was. But you could say that to me and I’d be like, oh no, kidding, why? Wow, really, oh, that’s too bad. Well, you know, we all make mistakes. What are you gonna do? And that’s it.
But there are people who are so in love with certain personalities in the Catholic culture that God forbid you say one word about them or against them, and they’re storming your door with pitchforks and torches. So if you like Father Ripperger or whoever it is you like, fine, fine. If you’re getting something out of what they’re offering, great, because I get something out of Fulton Sheen and what he offered and so and so get something out of somebody else and so and so. That’s all fine, that’s normal. But just be careful that you don’t swallow whole Everything Father Ripperger tells you, because I can tell you, if I’ve seen, if I’ve seen slash heard 20 of his talks 19 of them I had to say a third of that should have been left out. A third of everything you said should have been left out.
And that’s without exaggeration, so take what he says under advisement. I’m going to play this clip one more time because I think there was something that I wanted to zero in on that kind of lost track of. Let me play this one more time.
0:18:29 – Fr. Ripperger
To realize, too, is that sin causes a lot of damage.
0:18:35 – Host
Oh, I remember now. Sin causes a lot of damage. Let me let it play a little bit longer here.
0:18:39 – Fr. Ripperger
You know people have this idea that you know, once I go to confession, my job’s done, I’ve got nothing else to do, I’m good, I’m in the state of grace. That’s not how this works.
0:18:51 – Host
Okay, for your edification. I do want to lend my voice to this. He’s absolutely right. Sin, or rather confession, cancels out a debt. But sin literally does harm, it literally does damage to the soul, to the intellect, to the will. It morphs your desire. It does real harm, real damage. I was telling this to my kids kind of recently. As a matter of fact, if you take a nail and you might have heard me say this on a podcast too, because now I’m feeling like I also said it in front of a microphone, but it was a lesson that I was just giving to my kids If you take a nail and hammer it through a board, you’ve damaged the board and you’ve disfigured it because there’s a nail in it and a nail does not belong in the board.
Let’s just pretend that’s not what the board is for. Now, confession is removing the nail from that board. But once you remove the nail from the board, you’re left with a hole in the wood. There’s still a hole there. So confession and the state of grace removes the nail. But your soul, your whole, your soul Okay, so I’m not just talking about some blob that’s inside your body. Your soul is who you are, your soul is you. Your body is also you, but your soul is you. You’re not a spirit poured into a body. You’re a soul and body composite, you understand. So your soul is you. The hole in that wood is your soul in a state of grace. So how do you repair a hole in that board? Prayer, penance, sacrifice. That’s how you’re, that’s how you make the hole in the board disappear.
The damage sin does to the soul is real. As I said, it damages your intellect. The damages your spirit. I don’t just mean the soul, I mean your spirit, how you feel, how you, how you, the posture of your place in reality, your spirit, the posture of your place in reality. It damages your intellect, your spirit. It damages your will. It disfigures or morphs your desire. If you’ve ever battled a sin that you’ve found difficult to give up, as much as you hate it, then you know what it’s like to have a desire that’s disfigured or morphed because you don’t desire the thing that you hate, right? Anyone who’s had a drug addiction or is an alcoholic, et cetera, et cetera, knows what that’s like Sin really does do damage. Everything he said in this clip is the truth and I just wanted to lend my voice to that.
The importance, therefore, of penance and a healthy prayer life. And a healthy prayer life does not necessarily mean you’re spending 18 hours a day on your knees with rosaries in your hand. A healthy prayer life is not necessarily quantity, it’s quality, quality. So a healthy prayer life, penance and sacrifice, that doesn’t mean, you know, taking a lash to your own back. Yeah, I’m not saying a penance has to be extreme. It has to be challenging. Some of it’s challenging, but not something that kills you. You know, penance, prayer, sacrifice Also, it’s not just about you know, this whole conversion process, reversing the damage of sin.
It’s not just about what you don’t do. It’s not about what you say no to. It’s also about what you say yes to service right, patience with others Sometimes that’s a service too right or doing things for others, and so on and so on. I’m not going to talk it to death, I’m going to get the idea. So repairing the damage of sin isn’t always just about what you say no to, it’s about what you say yes to as well. Let’s get a little bit more of that clip going.
0:23:01 – Fr. Ripperger
It’s true that the culpability of the sin has now been absolved and you’re no longer bound by the in the tribunal of God’s justice. You’re no longer bound for having violated his law, and that’s true, that that does. Actually, it’s absolved in the will. And every time you sin, you darken your intellect, you’ve moved your lower faculties to consider the thing and under the wrong aspect and you disorder your lower faculties.
0:23:27 – Host
This is what you’re doing Okay, disorder your lower faculties to continue to consider a thing under the wrong aspect. So, for instance, there was a real extensive research and study done in I believe it was the UK, I don’t remember Now. Now I’m starting to get an echo in my memory that it was the UK and also this must be true also in Kentucky, university of Kentucky or something like that, because why else would that be in my head, kentucky, I mean? Who thinks of Kentucky? No offense, kentuckians.
Anyway, there was a lot, there’s been a lot of research, and they find that teenage boys these days, with a lot of exposure to pornography, when you show them a picture of a female I don’t mean a nude picture, just a female the part of their brain that lights up isn’t the part of the brain that we associate with compassion, it’s the part of the brain that we associate with tool utilization. You see, so their brains have been changed and conditioned in such a way that when they look at a woman, they’re seeing something to be used. They consider a thing from the wrong aspect. Maybe I’ll do a show on what the lower faculties are, because it’s a fascinating subject for me and it might be for you too, or it might be too brainy, I don’t know. You don’t have to listen to it if you don’t like it. Okay, all right, this next clip. Let’s move on to this other clip.
0:25:03 – Poor Gen-Zer
Does anyone else just work their ass off for like the last three or four years for like a college degree and now you have a job that you hate and you still can’t afford life and you’re still fucking miserable and you can’t pay any of your bills and you can’t live in the house that you imagine and you just feel lied to.
0:25:18 – Host
Holy cow lady, Did you just do a couple of lines of cocaine before you made this video? My goodness, Luckily there is a feature on X that allows you to slow down the video. Lord have mercy, slow down.
0:25:37 – Poor Gen-Zer
Does anyone else just work their ass off for like the last three or four years?
0:25:44 – Host
My friend. I have been working my ass off for the last. Let’s see, this is 2024, for the last 45 years Well, maybe not that long, at least 40. I’ve been working my ass off.
0:25:56 – Poor Gen-Zer
Like a college degree, and now you have a job that you hate and you still can’t afford life and you’re still fucking miserable and you can’t pay any of your bills and you can’t live in the house that you imagine and you just feel, oh God.
0:26:16 – Host
Oh God, this poor child doesn’t realize that life doesn’t happen. It simply is, and it’s there for you to analyze and to learn how to navigate, because it doesn’t shape shift, it just is Right. So you’re not able to live in the house that you imagined. Well, how did you imagine you’d afford that house by getting a college degree in lesbian dance and then working at Starbucks? How did you imagine you were going to afford that house of your dreams?
0:26:59 – Poor Gen-Zer
Let’s continue, because you just feel lied to, because you thought that if you just went to college and got a degree, you’d be able to afford a house and yes, you were definitely lied to and God forgive me, but you’re a moron for having picked up that lie and run with it.
0:27:19 – Host
That was a very, very big mistake on your part. I actually do feel bad for this girl. For this girl because she is only now realizing that life is not a game of Barbie dolls, that life is what it is and it will not bend to your imagination. Life will not bend to your imagination. We have produced at least two generations of young people who see life as an expression of a fantasy. Why? Because everyone makes it so for them. In the protected environment of their family home, where life is whatever you say it has to be. In the protected environment of their schools, where life is whatever works best for your feelings.
Well, now they’re done with school or they’re approaching the finish line of schooling, of their education. They’re entering the workforce. They’re finding out it’s actually hard to get a job. They’re finding out if you show up late because you needed a mental space for an hour Right, it’s a mental health space. I needed it for an hour, so I showed up an hour late to work you will lose your job. They’re realizing for the first time that actions have consequences. Acts have consequences. When you push against reality, reality pushes back. In fact, it doesn’t push, it punches you right across the face, and I mean it. I’m not literal, being literal, because obviously reality doesn’t have a fist, but when you push against reality, reality pushes back with a force and bluntness equivalent to a punch in the face. And this girl is experiencing that punch in the face.
0:29:28 – Poor Gen-Zer
And you just feel lied to because you thought that if you just went to college and got a degree you’d be able to afford a house and like things that make you happy, but yet you’re still barely can afford groceries.
0:29:43 – Host
Darling, I’m with you because I’m out of work and we can barely afford groceries. That being said, please consider becoming a paid subscriber to the CatholicAdventurercom website. And that’s all I’ll say about that. Let’s get back to the video. Okay, barely able to afford food or clothes or literally anything that makes you happy is what she said you had to spend the whole entire weekend in your bed because you literally don’t have any money to go do anything Other, like if you buy food, you just can’t have an entertainer budget.
0:30:19 – Poor Gen-Zer
So Okay, if you buy food, you can’t have an entertainment budget. So we’re hearing a lot of that in this second half of this clip.
0:30:25 – Host
If you’d like to watch these yourselves, I’m going to be happy to help you out. If you’d like to watch these yourself, I think I can embed them. I will embed them on this episode’s on demand page at CatholicAdventurercom. I cannot embed them in the descriptions in the various distribution carriers but I can embed them on my website at CatholicAdventurercom. Go to CatholicAdventurercom, find this episode’s on demand page. You’ll see the videos embedded there.
What she’s saying a lot of is you can’t afford anything that makes you happy, you can’t go out, you don’t have money for an entertainment budget. I don’t know if you, the listener, quite realize how stupid this sounds, but people older than me I mean like a generation older than I am okay, they have no concept of an entertainment budget. I mean really, hey, I’m generation X. The word entertainment didn’t exist for Gen Xers, but it existed even less for, like the greatest generation, the World War II generation and even, I guess, the boomers. There was no entertainment budget. We hear home entertainment, home entertainment, right, your entertainment budget. You know it’s in network, the word entertainment, it’s in network names and it’s in the advertising thing. Yeah, I remember the first time I heard that word, not the first time I heard it in the English language, but the first time I heard it in advertising it was do you remember, gen Xers? When was the first time you heard the word entertainment in an ad? The Nintendo Entertainment System. And I thought that was such a weird tagline, because it’s not an entertainment system, it’s just a game. I remember thinking that’s a really weird way to put that the Nintendo Entertainment System. Well, today the word entertainment is everywhere, because girls just want to have fun and apparently so do the guys. Because the guys these days are acting womanly or I shouldn’t say womanly, because that degrades women they’re acting effeminate Effeminate is a better way of putting that. They’re not acting feminine, they’re acting effeminate. Girls just want to have fun, and so do the guys. It’s all about positive validation, it’s all about some kind of fun return on the investment of nothing. And now see what I’m hearing this girl saying is, after I buy food, there’s no money for entertainment. And I’m thinking I’m a Gen Xer. Now right, I’m a Gen Xer, thinking you can afford food. You shouldn’t be bitching, you can afford food. What’s the matter with you?
When I was young, look what passes for a normal meal today when I was younger, we were so poor that would have been considered fine dining, what passes for a normal meal today. We didn’t starve when I was a kid. We ate. My father worked hard, sometimes a little too much. Sometimes we didn’t see him at all in the morning and then didn’t see him until late at night, when it was just about bedtime. Sometimes he got home after we were already in bed you know my siblings and I but he worked, we ate. I didn’t think to myself, boy, I wish I had more to eat. I don’t think I went to bed hungry, and if I did, I wasn’t aware of it. And we always had dinner. We always ate, you know.
So from that point of view, when I hear someone saying I bought food, now I can’t have entertainment, I’m thinking girl, you bought food, you crossed the finish line, what’s wrong with you? Anyhow, there’s a gross lack of common sense and an inability to cope with reality in the generations plural that follow. Generation X. Millennials have it a little bit, and then Gen Z and Gen Y, whatever the other gens are, they experience it a whole lot more, a whole lot more. Millennials, not as much, but a little bit, not as much as the other two generations following them, but a little bit. People have an inability to cope with reality because they’ve never had to face it before. Which brings me to the final segment, something I wanted to say, a few things about change versus flux, or rather permanence versus flux and change.
For Catholics, change is something of a dirty word because the Catholic Church is not supposed to change, and that’s true. That is true. Catholicism is not supposed to change. That is also true, please God. Of course, it’s also true and this is not about Catholics, just hear me out. But for Catholics in particular, changes were very suspicious of that word change In the world. They love the word change, they just love that word.
Well, what’s the difference between their view of change and ours? How do we each see permanence from our unique perspectives? Do we really want to stay the same as Catholics? Do we want to stay the same or do we want to change? We want to grow in holiness, right? Well, that’s change.
Okay, change is good. Well, the world doesn’t want you saying he and she. Sometimes they want you to ask someone’s gender. That’s change, that’s a change in the culture. Is that good? No, it is not. Change sometimes is good and sometimes is bad. But you know what’s true? And universal Change itself.
Change is woven into the fabric, into the DNA of reality Change, not permanence. The only thing permanent is God. Now the church is permanent, but even the church will come to an end at the resurrection. The faith is permanent, but even the faith changes in that we learn more and more and more deeply about the truths revealed by God. The truths don’t change, we just learn them more deeply. What we know in established theology today is deeper than we knew it a hundred years ago, or maybe a thousand years ago. Certainly it’s deeper than what we had two thousand years ago.
Change is part of reality, but change can also be bad. I have seen this all throughout my work, the many years of my work in communications and evangelization. I have seen saints fall, truly beautiful saintly, people who changed for the worse. I have seen some real scoundrels change dramatically, change for the better. I don’t think I’ve seen a good priest go foul, but I have seen bad priests suddenly become very, very good. By bad I mean maybe their administrative quality or their theological qualities, things like that. I have seen good or bad priests turn around and become much, much better.
Change is normal. Change is normal, because everything in reality is truth. Part of the truth is goodness, capital G goodness, and goodness is dynamic. If you haven’t been listening to the past few episodes, this may sound like Chinese for you. Everything that’s true is good. Capital G good. Everything that’s true is good and everything that’s good is true. Truth is stable, stable, stable, it doesn’t move, it is rock solid, stable. But goodness is dynamic, it moves, it causes movement. Well then, if, then that would probably suggest that all change is good. Well, not necessarily, because change can be evil. It can, change, can negate positive goodness. How is that possible? Because evil is goodness flipped upside down, evil is goodness in the opposite direction. So it’s strange but true that even evil, even evil, relies on the positive dynamism intrinsic to the nature of the good, because goodness does, evil is able to do. That’s why change can be good in the church or in the world, and change can be bad in the church or in the world, but all change is part of reality, it’s part of existence.
The reason I want to put this forward is we kind of see a change in today’s Gospel reading, in the transfiguration. We kind of see a little bit of a change there. Sometimes a change can be rocky. For instance, lord, it is good that we are here. Let’s build three tents One for you, one for Moses, one for Elijah.
But he didn’t realize what he was saying. Okay, but he was applying himself to the situation, right? He was unfamiliar with the situation. What he was seeing was frightful, not frightful bad, it was frightful good, but it was still frightful. And what do you do when you’re faced with a frightful situation? Sometimes you say stupid things, right, but that is a change In that moment.
Yes, he might have said something silly, but it might have been rooted in a good reason, because in ancient Israel, why do you build tents? You build tents because you intend to stay, not because you want shade. A tent is intended for someone who is going to stay right. And maybe that’s why the Gospel writer says he didn’t know what he was saying, because Jesus was not going to be staying on earth forever. I don’t know, maybe that’s what the Gospel writer meant, I don’t know. But the point is he might have said something silly, but it was something silly rooted in something. True. He might have said something ridiculous, but he was saying something ridiculous because he was experiencing a change, because of what he was witnessing and they were changed when they came down from that mountain. They were different from who they were when they went up. You know why?
One of the reasons why I know that to be true, one of the least obvious reasons, but a reason Jesus said to them don’t tell anybody about this until after I’ve raised from the dead. And the apostles didn’t know what that meant and Jesus didn’t take the time to explain it. Jesus should have known and I’m sure he did, that they don’t exactly know what the resurrection will mean, even though they’ve just seen it Right. He should know. They don’t have this in their minds intellectually, but he said it anyway. Why? Because now they have it in their understanding fundamentally Because they’ve seen what we will be at the resurrection. When they saw Jesus transfigured, they didn’t have the knowledge in their minds, but they had an understanding fundamentally because they witnessed it. Maybe in the moment they couldn’t process it Right, Because the gospel says I think it said they talked about what that must mean to be raised from the dead, but it was in their understanding somewhere because they just witnessed it. It was in their understanding somewhere because Jesus told this thing to them.
Change sometimes makes us very uncomfortable, especially certain character types Like for me. I hate change. Change is very uncomfortable, I hate it, but it’s part of reality, especially if we intend to be better today than we were when we first climbed up this mountain of this Catholic experience. So sometimes, embracing that change will require us to listen openly when someone criticizes our behavior, when someone corrects us about something that we said or something that we think that we know. It requires us to be open when someone says, when someone questions one of our heroes which sometimes that infuriates me, for instance, when someone questions the quality of John Paul II, I’m ready to go up to bat, you know. But I listen. Because what if what they’re saying is right? I listen, I trust, but I verify. Like I trust what they’re saying, okay, I accept it and I process it, but I verify what they’re saying, not just for a jump all the second, but anybody. We have to have a willingness to be moved to something and someone better than who and what we are today. Change is part of reality, not permanence change. Yes, change can be bad, but change by its nature is oriented toward the good.
And from my last point I’ll say this, and I’ve said this before. When I make an argument, I’m not interested in being right, I’m interested in being correct. So if I’m incorrect, if what I’m saying is incorrect, I am totally, totally willing to be corrected, because it’s not a fight for me like I wanna be right. Therefore, you can’t be no, no, no, I just wanna be correct. And if I’m incorrect, if what I’m saying is wrong, I’m going to thank you for correcting me. I may push back because I don’t see it the way you’re seeing it, or I may push back because you actually are wrong and I am not, or I don’t see that you’re right. I may push back. There may be a back and forth, but it’s not because I wanna be right, it’s just because I don’t see it the way you’re seeing it, and you’re gonna have to try harder to convince me. That’s all. I’m not looking to be right, I’m just looking to. I’m just.
My interest is not in being right but in being correct, and that’s an attitude every one of us should have in approaching life. It’s about being correct and sometimes, often, if we’re going to be better than then, if we’re gonna be better tomorrow than we are today and yesterday, being correct means an openness to being corrected. Catholics these days, the world over, are less and less willing to accept correction. It’s. I wish I could say I know exactly why that is. I really don’t know why it is, but it’s really really weird. Maybe it’s people in general. I guess that’s really what I should say. People in general are really not willing to be corrected, and Catholics are among them. But, brothers and sisters, remember, remember.
Perfection is about ongoing change, and change often means you have to let go of the things that you thought were permanent. I’m gonna say it again Change often means that you have to let go of the things that you thought were permanent, even if they’re true. For example, for example, I remember I was at Mass once and the priest told it was a daily Mass. And the priest told the people in his homily sometimes you should put down the rosary for a week and spend that time reading the Bible. I think that’s perfectly healthy advice. Perfectly healthy advice. Oh my God, they were ready to kill him, all these old folks in the Mass. They were ready to kill him. Put down the rosary. And this is why this is why here’s what I would have said to them. Well, this is why I’m telling you put down the rosary and pick up the Bible, because your reaction demonstrates how unholy you are, despite being so devoted to that rosary. So the rosary is good, right, but sometimes change will require that we let go of something that we thought was permanent, even if it’s something that was good. Sometimes it means permanently letting it go because it’s holding us back. Sometimes it means momentarily letting it go, or letting go for just a little while, but sometimes you have to let something go, even if it’s good, even if you thought it was permanent, even if it’s permanent gives you comfort. You must learn to let go, because life is about change and growing in holiness is about change and it’s about the hardest change you could ever imagine the change of your nature.
This has been a Rootin’, tootin’, rockin’, sock’em’. Oh, by the way, sign up for my newsletter. Sign up for my newsletter. Go to CatholicAdventurercom. Sign up for the newsletter. There’s a lot of stuff going on I mean good stuff that I can post all day on social media, but you’ll never see it. Please sign up for the newsletter. I’m gonna be doing an exclusive. I’m gonna be offering exclusive podcast episodes for people who sign up for the newsletter. So sign up for the newsletter. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber. It’s $5 a month. Believe me, you can afford it. This has been again a Rockin’ Sock’em’ Rootin’ Tootin’ Too Hot To Handle. Episode of the Catholic Experience. Follow me on X at For the Queen DVM, facebook at Catholic Adventurer. Please spread the word about this podcast. Help me to build an audience.
0:49:46 – Poor Gen-Zer
Folks, please help me to build an audience, if you think there’s any value, but what I’m doing here.
0:49:49 – Host
Please help me to build an audience. Spread the podcast around. Spread the word. I really appreciate it. Visit the website at CatholicAdventurercom. Sign up for the newsletter If you don’t want to go to hell signing out of here. May God be with you all. Bye-bye.
00:39
Today we’re talking. We’re going to have some fun. We’ve been doing some pretty heavy shows over the past couple of weeks. Today we’re just going to have a little fun. We’re going to take it easy and relax.
00:48
I’m going to do a little bit of a reaction a reaction, I guess, speech, I don’t know what you’d call it, monologue, whatever To Father, something I saw from Father Rippager. Father Chad Rippager, known and renowned and famous exorcist. If you’re catching this podcast, you almost certainly have heard of Father Chad Rippager. I’m going to do a little bit of a reaction segment to a video that I saw of his Not a full video, it’s just a little clip. Then I’ll tell you what I think about it. And then I’m going to do another reaction segment to some poor girl who can’t afford entertainment. Why is that crazy? Why is that crazy? I’m going to explain to you why that is crazy and why it is emblematic of so much that’s wrong in the world and in the church. Ooh, check it.
01:43
After that, I’m going to talk to you a little bit about common sense, flux and change. As Catholics, change is a very dirty word for us, but it really shouldn’t be or sometimes it ought to be. Why can that go both ways? We’re going to talk a little bit about that. We’re going to keep it light, we’re going to keep it airy and we’re going to keep it substantial. First, just a couple of announcements. Something very exciting. Well, I hope it’s exciting. Hopefully it’s exciting and not stressful.
02:11
Let’s see, in my efforts to bribe you to sign up for my newsletter, I’m going to be doing this. I will be providing exclusive podcast episodes Just for my newsletter subscribers. It’s not going to be every week, or it might be every week, it depends on what. What comes to mind, what I have kind of in the pipeline, my best stuff, I’m going to reserve just for subscribers paid subscribers, rather. But I’m going to do something kind of nice An exclusive podcast that will only be made available to people who are signed up for my newsletter. So if that might interest you.
02:54
And really the main reason to sign up for the newsletter isn’t for the bribe, it’s because by signing up to the newsletter, you’re helping me to keep connected to you without the social media middleman. Whatever the reason, however they do it, the algorithm determines who is successful on social media. Social media is where the internet happens. So the newsletter helps me and online internet apostolate to stay connected to you without the interference of social media. So check it out. You’re going to find a panel in the link in my bio throughout social media and you just put your email address in there and you’re golden. Or go to my website at CatholicAdventurercom. And if you don’t see this, you are blind, my friends, if you don’t see it, you’re blind. Get some help, but at least your ears work because you’re able to listen to the show at the top of the website. On the desktop, at the top of the website is a one line form. You put your email address in there, click the button, boom, you’re signed up. On desktops or any other mobile and any other device mobile device, iphone, ipad, whatever. If you scroll all the way to the bottom, you will also see in a big black box subscribe to get notified of new podcasts and articles. That is also one line you put in your email address. You click subscribe, you’re done.
04:15
We’re going to get now to a clip by Father Chad Rippager and then a clip by I don’t know who she is. Maybe she’s a liberal, maybe she’s not, I don’t know, but I can tell you she uses some foul language in the clip. I’m warning you ahead of time. I’m not going to waste my time bleeping that out live. Maybe I’ll bleep it out for the on demand version, but if you’re listening to this live and you hear an F bomb or something from that clip, which you will, please, please, don’t, don’t have a heart attack. Okay, thank you, I really appreciate it. All right, let’s get on with business.
04:53
Getting to Father Chad Rippager. Rippager, his clip clip from what seems to me either a liberal, lucy, or just an Gen X or Gen Z. Then we’re going to talk about goodness, flux and permanence. I know I make it sound brainy, but it’s going to be relatable. It’s going to be something that I think everybody needs to, can get something out of it. Okay, Father Chad Rippager is going to be talking about the damage, of the damage that sin does to the human mind. I’m going to be reacting to what he’s saying. That’s the basic, just.
05:28 – Fr. Ripperger (Host)
People don’t seem to realize too is that sin causes a lot of damage. You know, people have this idea that you know, once I go to confession, my job’s done, I’ve got nothing else to do, I’m good, I’m in the state of grace. That’s not how this works. It’s true that the culpability of the sin has now been absolved and you’re no longer bound by the in the tribunal of God’s justice. You’re no longer bound for having violated his law. That’s true. That that does actually is that it’s absolved in the will. But every time you sin, you darken your intellect, you’ve moved your lower faculties to consider the thing and under the wrong aspect and you disorder your lower faculties. This is why we have to spend time in purgatory, because we’re a mess.
06:15 – Host (Host)
What I love about the video is how positive and edifying it is. Doesn’t it just make you? Doesn’t it just set you on fire with positivity? Here’s the thing. I like Father Rippager stuff because I’m half an intellectual. I guess I’m half a scholar, maybe less than half. I’m not entirely left brain or right brain, I’m sort of cursed to be in the middle and that’s how I am with all things related to smartitude. I’m kind of a scholar, kind of an intellectual and mostly an idiot. So I like listening to Father Chad Rippager, but I also get frustrated as a communicator and as an evangelizer listening to Father Chad Rippager because he is just so negative.
07:08
He’s always so down on people and you can see it in his face as he is talking. He looks like he’s really irritated by the people he’s speaking to because it almost feels like in his mind as he’s talking what he’s really saying is these people are all disgusting, horrible sinners. I mean I don’t even know why they came here. It looks like in his face. It looks like he’s saying that in his head. The other thing that bothers me or concerns me is sometimes he says things that aren’t actually true. I’m not saying he’s lying to you, but sometimes he delivers things as absolutely true. St Thomas says this all the time. That doesn’t make it true. For instance and I deal with this one a lot People who are downtrodden, people who have reached a place of hopelessness in their progress in holiness. Why? Because they happened upon something. Father Chad Rippager said One of the things that has happened a number of times over the past maybe four years that I’ve encountered. Once I heard that God doesn’t hear prayers if I’m in mortal sin. It just made me stop wanting to pray. I’ve heard that a number of times. Father Rippager didn’t say you know, st Thomas says if you’re in a state of grace, god doesn’t hear your prayers. St Thomas just says clearly no, absolutely not. Folks, prayer is a response to grace. No one can pray without grace. God is not going to give you the grace and call you to pray if he’s not going to listen to you.
09:02
St Thomas Aquinas also said that the immaculate conception was false, that the Virgin Mary was not immaculately conceived. He appears to have changed his mind later. We can confidently say he changed his mind later, but he didn’t say so explicitly. But there are things that he did say that we can reasonably say you know. Later on in his theological career, his career as a Dominican, his ministry as a Dominican. Later on he appears to have changed his mind. But what if he hadn’t? Was he still wrong that the Virgin Mary was not immaculately conceived? Of course he was still wrong. He was wrong when he said it. It’s good that he changed his mind, but if he hadn’t changed his mind he still would have been wrong.
09:45
I believe St Thomas also said heaven was empty. At a point I think he said let me stop there. I know he said something that was erroneous about who occupies heaven. I know 100% that he said something that was erroneous. I don’t know what was, so I’ll stop there.
10:05
The point is not everything in church thought is actually truth. It’s all rooted, based in something true, but it’s not actually truth, not all of it, not all of it in church thought. I’m talking about church thought. I’m talking about philosophy, not doctrine. Doctrine is all true, so for nothing.
10:24
There was another saint who also there was a saint I’m gonna have to research this if I have the time and put it in the show notes there was a saint who had a vision of the Blessed Virgin Mary and this saint said the Holy Virgin told her that she was not immaculately conceived. I’m gonna let that settle in for a moment. Why? Why would this saint said that the Virgin Mary told us? Because sometimes visions get mixed up with a seer’s perception or with a seer’s memory. That doesn’t matter. The substance of what’s being said by the visionary or by the apparition is what matters, not each little detail. That’s for the church to decide and to determine which is so and which can be kind of left aside. That’s up to the church to determine.
11:16
The point I’m making is there are things I’ve seen many and heard him talk many times, father Rippager, and every time I come away from a talk thinking 75% of that was great, every time, every time 75, maybe even 85% of that was great and 15 or more percent was. You should absolutely never say that, father, never, ever say that, either because it’s not actually true. It’s church thought, but it’s not church proclamation. There are other things in church thought that say what you said is not true. Saint Thomas said God doesn’t hear prayers. If you’re not gonna say the grace to God doesn’t hear your prayer. Well, okay, there’s plenty of elements of church thought that say that that’s wrong. So you shouldn’t say that. So every time I hear him talk or I see him talk or I see a clip, I always come away from a thinking that most of the majority of what you just said was great, but there was a large portion there that you should have just totally forgotten about and left that out of your talk.
12:27
Father Rippager’s a great fellow. He’s a hard worker, a great academic, tremendous academic, and I’m not saying that people shouldn’t listen to his talks. I’ll tell you a story. Once I said to Father Rippager one time there was a book that he had recommended.
12:49
I don’t remember this was years ago and anyway I don’t remember what it was but I read it and I found it very difficult to follow. It was a book on meditation, on Catholic meditation. This is before I was actually practicing with everything. I try to understand it before I put it into practice. So this was I think it was the first book I got on meditation. It wasn’t perhaps for beginners, I guess, and that’s okay with me, because I’m kind of beyond that. I need to go a little bit deeper, you know.
13:23
But the book was really kind of all over the place and I said to him you know, I appreciate this book. But tell me what I’m missing here, because I finished the whole book and I found it to be not very practical but entirely theoretical. And he said the book was very practical but sometimes people don’t have the intellect required to understand it. It wasn’t exactly those words, but it was something like that. It was sort of an academic way of saying the book is practical. You’re just stupid. Without using the word stupid, I got his meaning 100%. I got his meaning 100%. The book is very practical, but some people I’m paraphrasing, some people don’t have what it takes to comprehend it.
14:14
And this is who he is with every talk. You know, there was another time that I heard him talk. This was in oh, this was a sound clip, this was a sound bite, also years ago, and he was telling people how they ought to come up to receive communion and I agreed with everything he said. But I really didn’t like his tone. His tone was such that you would expect that when he was done talking it would be followed by comma UA holes. You should come up, we should come up, in a state of reverence. Your eyes should be downcast, your hands should be folded, comma, ua holes. That’s how his tone came off, and this is my four minute clip maybe and I agreed with every minute of that clip. I agreed with in substance, but I hated how he delivered it. I hated how he delivered it. So I am not saying you shouldn’t watch his stuff. Listen to his stuff. If you can go and see him watch a talk of his in person, go and do that, but be very listen.
15:21
I’ve been warning across several episodes of this podcast that there is a cult of Catholic personalities. Please do not be a member of the cult of Catholic personalities, because there are lots of people who are rah, rah, rah, siss, boom, bah, father rippager, father rippager, father rippager and I don’t care who it is. Listen, I’m Fulton Sheen’s man. Fulton Sheen is my spiritual father. I’ve read almost everything he’s written. Half of what I own of his I’ve read at least twice. So Fulton Sheen is my guy. But you know what? I’m not in the cult of Catholic personalities. If it came out tomorrow that Fulton Sheen was involved in some scandal, that wouldn’t rock me a bit. If it came out tomorrow that a third of what Fulton Sheen said was actually false, that wouldn’t rock me a bit, because Fulton Sheen is just a priest to me, or was just a priest. He’s not a star.
16:17
My great love and respect and admiration for Fulton Sheen does not reach or does not descend to the depths of how some people love father rippager, or love Bishop Barron, or love, believe it or not, father James Martin I can’t believe it either, but it exists or love father this one on YouTube, or father that one with the podcast. I mean, some people really go overboard, you know, and God forbid you criticize this person. Listen, if you criticized Fulton Sheen to me, we could have a conversation and that’s all it would be is a conversation. You know, fulton Sheen was really nasty to work with, which actually, I’ve heard that he was. But you could say that to me and I’d be like, oh no, kidding, why? Wow, really, oh, that’s too bad. Well, you know, we all make mistakes. What are you gonna do? And that’s it.
17:18
But there are people who are so in love with certain personalities in the Catholic culture that God forbid you say one word about them or against them, and they’re storming your door with pitchforks and torches. So if you like Father Rippager or whoever it is you like, fine, fine. If you’re getting something out of what they’re offering, great, because I get something out of Fulton Sheen and what he offered and so and so get something out of somebody else and so and so. That’s all fine, that’s normal. But just be careful that you don’t swallow whole Everything Father Rippager tells you, because I can tell you, if I’ve seen, if I’ve seen slash heard 20 of his talks 19 of them I had to say a third of that should have been left out. A third of everything you said should have been left out.
18:13
And that’s without exaggeration, so take what he says under advisement. I’m going to play this clip one more time because I think there was something that I wanted to zero in on that kind of lost track of. Let me play this one more time.
18:29 – Fr. Ripperger (Host)
To realize, too, is that sin causes a lot of damage.
18:34 – Host (Host)
Oh, I remember now. Sin causes a lot of damage. Let me let it play a little bit longer here.
18:39 – Fr. Ripperger (Host)
You know people have this idea that you know, once I go to confession, my job’s done, I’ve got nothing else to do, I’m good, I’m in the state of grace. That’s not how this works.
18:51 – Host (Host)
Okay, for your edification. I do want to lend my voice to this. He’s absolutely right. Sin, or rather confession, cancels out a debt. But sin literally does harm, it literally does damage to the soul, to the intellect, to the will. It morphs your desire. It does real harm, real damage. I was telling this to my kids kind of recently. As a matter of fact, if you take a nail and you might have heard me say this on a podcast too, because now I’m feeling like I also said it in front of a microphone, but it was a lesson that I was just giving to my kids If you take a nail and hammer it through a board, you’ve damaged the board and you’ve disfigured it because there’s a nail in it and a nail does not belong in the board.
19:44
Let’s just pretend that’s not what the board is for. Now, confession is removing the nail from that board. But once you remove the nail from the board, you’re left with a hole in the wood. There’s still a hole there. So confession and the state of grace removes the nail. But your soul, your whole, your soul Okay, so I’m not just talking about some blob that’s inside your body. Your soul is who you are, your soul is you. Your body is also you, but your soul is you. You’re not a spirit poured into a body. You’re a soul and body composite, you understand. So your soul is you. The hole in that wood is your soul in a state of grace. So how do you repair a hole in that board? Prayer, penance, sacrifice. That’s how you’re, that’s how you make the hole in the board disappear.
20:51
The damage sin does to the soul is real. As I said, it damages your intellect. The damages your spirit. I don’t just mean the soul, I mean your spirit, how you feel, how you, how you, the posture of your place in reality, your spirit, the posture of your place in reality. It damages your intellect, your spirit. It damages your will. It disfigures or morphs your desire. If you’ve ever battled a sin that you’ve found difficult to give up, as much as you hate it, then you know what it’s like to have a desire that’s disfigured or morphed because you don’t desire the thing that you hate, right? Anyone who’s had a drug addiction or is an alcoholic, et cetera, et cetera, knows what that’s like Sin really does do damage. Everything he said in this clip is the truth and I just wanted to lend my voice to that.
21:41
The importance, therefore, of penance and a healthy prayer life. And a healthy prayer life does not necessarily mean you’re spending 18 hours a day on your knees with rosaries in your hand. A healthy prayer life is not necessarily quantity, it’s quality, quality. So a healthy prayer life, penance and sacrifice, that doesn’t mean, you know, taking a lash to your own back. Yeah, I’m not saying a penance has to be extreme. It has to be challenging. Some of it’s challenging, but not something that kills you. You know, penance, prayer, sacrifice Also, it’s not just about you know, this whole conversion process, reversing the damage of sin.
22:29
It’s not just about what you don’t do. It’s not about what you say no to. It’s also about what you say yes to service right, patience with others Sometimes that’s a service too right or doing things for others, and so on and so on. I’m not going to talk it to death, I’m going to get the idea. So repairing the damage of sin isn’t always just about what you say no to, it’s about what you say yes to as well. Let’s get a little bit more of that clip going.
23:01 – Fr. Ripperger (Host)
It’s true that the culpability of the sin has now been absolved and you’re no longer bound by the in the tribunal of God’s justice. You’re no longer bound for having violated his law, and that’s true, that that does. Actually, it’s absolved in the will. And every time you sin, you darken your intellect, you’ve moved your lower faculties to consider the thing and under the wrong aspect and you disorder your lower faculties.
23:26 – Host (Host)
This is what you’re doing Okay, disorder your lower faculties to continue to consider a thing under the wrong aspect. So, for instance, there was a real extensive research and study done in I believe it was the UK, I don’t remember Now. Now I’m starting to get an echo in my memory that it was the UK and also this must be true also in Kentucky, university of Kentucky or something like that, because why else would that be in my head, kentucky, I mean? Who thinks of Kentucky? No offense, kentuckians.
24:03
Anyway, there was a lot, there’s been a lot of research, and they find that teenage boys these days, with a lot of exposure to pornography, when you show them a picture of a female I don’t mean a nude picture, just a female the part of their brain that lights up isn’t the part of the brain that we associate with compassion, it’s the part of the brain that we associate with tool utilization. You see, so their brains have been changed and conditioned in such a way that when they look at a woman, they’re seeing something to be used. They consider a thing from the wrong aspect. Maybe I’ll do a show on what the lower faculties are, because it’s a fascinating subject for me and it might be for you too, or it might be too brainy, I don’t know. You don’t have to listen to it if you don’t like it. Okay, all right, this next clip. Let’s move on to this other clip.
25:03 – Poor Gen-Zer (Host)
Does anyone else just work their ass off for like the last three or four years for like a college degree and now you have a job that you hate and you still can’t afford life and you’re still fucking miserable and you can’t pay any of your bills and you can’t live in the house that you imagine and you just feel lied to.
25:17 – Host (Host)
Holy cow lady, Did you just do a couple of lines of cocaine before you made this video? My goodness, Luckily there is a feature on X that allows you to slow down the video. Lord have mercy, slow down.
25:37 – Poor Gen-Zer (Host)
Does anyone else just work their ass off for like the last three or four years?
25:43 – Host (Host)
My friend. I have been working my ass off for the last. Let’s see, this is 2024, for the last 45 years Well, maybe not that long, at least 40. I’ve been working my ass off.
25:56 – Poor Gen-Zer (Host)
Like a college degree, and now you have a job that you hate and you still can’t afford life and you’re still fucking miserable and you can’t pay any of your bills and you can’t live in the house that you imagine and you just feel, oh God.
26:15 – Host (Host)
Oh God, this poor child doesn’t realize that life doesn’t happen. It simply is, and it’s there for you to analyze and to learn how to navigate, because it doesn’t shape shift, it just is Right. So you’re not able to live in the house that you imagined. Well, how did you imagine you’d afford that house by getting a college degree in lesbian dance and then working at Starbucks? How did you imagine you were going to afford that house of your dreams?
26:58 – Poor Gen-Zer (Host)
Let’s continue, because you just feel lied to, because you thought that if you just went to college and got a degree, you’d be able to afford a house and yes, you were definitely lied to and God forgive me, but you’re a moron for having picked up that lie and run with it.
27:19 – Host (Host)
That was a very, very big mistake on your part. I actually do feel bad for this girl. For this girl because she is only now realizing that life is not a game of Barbie dolls, that life is what it is and it will not bend to your imagination. Life will not bend to your imagination. We have produced at least two generations of young people who see life as an expression of a fantasy. Why? Because everyone makes it so for them. In the protected environment of their family home, where life is whatever you say it has to be. In the protected environment of their schools, where life is whatever works best for your feelings.
28:17
Well, now they’re done with school or they’re approaching the finish line of schooling, of their education. They’re entering the workforce. They’re finding out it’s actually hard to get a job. They’re finding out if you show up late because you needed a mental space for an hour Right, it’s a mental health space. I needed it for an hour, so I showed up an hour late to work you will lose your job. They’re realizing for the first time that actions have consequences. Acts have consequences. When you push against reality, reality pushes back. In fact, it doesn’t push, it punches you right across the face, and I mean it. I’m not literal, being literal, because obviously reality doesn’t have a fist, but when you push against reality, reality pushes back with a force and bluntness equivalent to a punch in the face. And this girl is experiencing that punch in the face.
29:28 – Poor Gen-Zer (Host)
And you just feel lied to because you thought that if you just went to college and got a degree you’d be able to afford a house and like things that make you happy, but yet you’re still barely can afford groceries.
29:43 – Host (Host)
Darling, I’m with you because I’m out of work and we can barely afford groceries. That being said, please consider becoming a paid subscriber to the CatholicAdventurercom website. And that’s all I’ll say about that. Let’s get back to the video. Okay, barely able to afford food or clothes or literally anything that makes you happy is what she said you had to spend the whole entire weekend in your bed because you literally don’t have any money to go do anything Other, like if you buy food, you just can’t have an entertainer budget.
30:19 – Poor Gen-Zer (Host)
So Okay, if you buy food, you can’t have an entertainment budget. So we’re hearing a lot of that in this second half of this clip.
30:25 – Host (Host)
If you’d like to watch these yourselves, I’m going to be happy to help you out. If you’d like to watch these yourself, I think I can embed them. I will embed them on this episode’s on demand page at CatholicAdventurercom. I cannot embed them in the descriptions in the various distribution carriers but I can embed them on my website at CatholicAdventurercom. Go to CatholicAdventurercom, find this episode’s on demand page. You’ll see the videos embedded there.
30:57
What she’s saying a lot of is you can’t afford anything that makes you happy, you can’t go out, you don’t have money for an entertainment budget. I don’t know if you, the listener, quite realize how stupid this sounds, but people older than me I mean like a generation older than I am okay, they have no concept of an entertainment budget. I mean really, hey, I’m generation X. The word entertainment didn’t exist for Gen Xers, but it existed even less for, like the greatest generation, the World War II generation and even, I guess, the boomers. There was no entertainment budget. We hear home entertainment, home entertainment, right, your entertainment budget. You know it’s in network, the word entertainment, it’s in network names and it’s in the advertising thing. Yeah, I remember the first time I heard that word, not the first time I heard it in the English language, but the first time I heard it in advertising it was do you remember, gen Xers? When was the first time you heard the word entertainment in an ad? The Nintendo Entertainment System. And I thought that was such a weird tagline, because it’s not an entertainment system, it’s just a game. I remember thinking that’s a really weird way to put that the Nintendo Entertainment System. Well, today the word entertainment is everywhere, because girls just want to have fun and apparently so do the guys. Because the guys these days are acting womanly or I shouldn’t say womanly, because that degrades women they’re acting effeminate Effeminate is a better way of putting that. They’re not acting feminine, they’re acting effeminate. Girls just want to have fun, and so do the guys. It’s all about positive validation, it’s all about some kind of fun return on the investment of nothing. And now see what I’m hearing this girl saying is, after I buy food, there’s no money for entertainment. And I’m thinking I’m a Gen Xer. Now right, I’m a Gen Xer, thinking you can afford food. You shouldn’t be bitching, you can afford food. What’s the matter with you?
33:27
When I was young, look what passes for a normal meal today when I was younger, we were so poor that would have been considered fine dining, what passes for a normal meal today. We didn’t starve when I was a kid. We ate. My father worked hard, sometimes a little too much. Sometimes we didn’t see him at all in the morning and then didn’t see him until late at night, when it was just about bedtime. Sometimes he got home after we were already in bed you know my siblings and I but he worked, we ate. I didn’t think to myself, boy, I wish I had more to eat. I don’t think I went to bed hungry, and if I did, I wasn’t aware of it. And we always had dinner. We always ate, you know.
34:23
So from that point of view, when I hear someone saying I bought food, now I can’t have entertainment, I’m thinking girl, you bought food, you crossed the finish line, what’s wrong with you? Anyhow, there’s a gross lack of common sense and an inability to cope with reality in the generations plural that follow. Generation X. Millennials have it a little bit, and then Gen Z and Gen Y, whatever the other gens are, they experience it a whole lot more, a whole lot more. Millennials, not as much, but a little bit, not as much as the other two generations following them, but a little bit. People have an inability to cope with reality because they’ve never had to face it before. Which brings me to the final segment, something I wanted to say, a few things about change versus flux, or rather permanence versus flux and change.
35:34
For Catholics, change is something of a dirty word because the Catholic Church is not supposed to change, and that’s true. That is true. Catholicism is not supposed to change. That is also true, please God. Of course, it’s also true and this is not about Catholics, just hear me out. But for Catholics in particular, changes were very suspicious of that word change In the world. They love the word change, they just love that word.
36:09
Well, what’s the difference between their view of change and ours? How do we each see permanence from our unique perspectives? Do we really want to stay the same as Catholics? Do we want to stay the same or do we want to change? We want to grow in holiness, right? Well, that’s change.
36:29
Okay, change is good. Well, the world doesn’t want you saying he and she. Sometimes they want you to ask someone’s gender. That’s change, that’s a change in the culture. Is that good? No, it is not. Change sometimes is good and sometimes is bad. But you know what’s true? And universal Change itself.
36:49
Change is woven into the fabric, into the DNA of reality Change, not permanence. The only thing permanent is God. Now the church is permanent, but even the church will come to an end at the resurrection. The faith is permanent, but even the faith changes in that we learn more and more and more deeply about the truths revealed by God. The truths don’t change, we just learn them more deeply. What we know in established theology today is deeper than we knew it a hundred years ago, or maybe a thousand years ago. Certainly it’s deeper than what we had two thousand years ago.
37:35
Change is part of reality, but change can also be bad. I have seen this all throughout my work, the many years of my work in communications and evangelization. I have seen saints fall, truly beautiful saintly, people who changed for the worse. I have seen some real scoundrels change dramatically, change for the better. I don’t think I’ve seen a good priest go foul, but I have seen bad priests suddenly become very, very good. By bad I mean maybe their administrative quality or their theological qualities, things like that. I have seen good or bad priests turn around and become much, much better.
38:33
Change is normal. Change is normal, because everything in reality is truth. Part of the truth is goodness, capital G goodness, and goodness is dynamic. If you haven’t been listening to the past few episodes, this may sound like Chinese for you. Everything that’s true is good. Capital G good. Everything that’s true is good and everything that’s good is true. Truth is stable, stable, stable, it doesn’t move, it is rock solid, stable. But goodness is dynamic, it moves, it causes movement. Well then, if, then that would probably suggest that all change is good. Well, not necessarily, because change can be evil. It can, change, can negate positive goodness. How is that possible? Because evil is goodness flipped upside down, evil is goodness in the opposite direction. So it’s strange but true that even evil, even evil, relies on the positive dynamism intrinsic to the nature of the good, because goodness does, evil is able to do. That’s why change can be good in the church or in the world, and change can be bad in the church or in the world, but all change is part of reality, it’s part of existence.
40:13
The reason I want to put this forward is we kind of see a change in today’s Gospel reading, in the transfiguration. We kind of see a little bit of a change there. Sometimes a change can be rocky. For instance, lord, it is good that we are here. Let’s build three tents One for you, one for Moses, one for Elijah.
40:38
But he didn’t realize what he was saying. Okay, but he was applying himself to the situation, right? He was unfamiliar with the situation. What he was seeing was frightful, not frightful bad, it was frightful good, but it was still frightful. And what do you do when you’re faced with a frightful situation? Sometimes you say stupid things, right, but that is a change In that moment.
41:07
Yes, he might have said something silly, but it might have been rooted in a good reason, because in ancient Israel, why do you build tents? You build tents because you intend to stay, not because you want shade. A tent is intended for someone who is going to stay right. And maybe that’s why the Gospel writer says he didn’t know what he was saying, because Jesus was not going to be staying on earth forever. I don’t know, maybe that’s what the Gospel writer meant, I don’t know. But the point is he might have said something silly, but it was something silly rooted in something. True. He might have said something ridiculous, but he was saying something ridiculous because he was experiencing a change, because of what he was witnessing and they were changed when they came down from that mountain. They were different from who they were when they went up. You know why?
41:59
One of the reasons why I know that to be true, one of the least obvious reasons, but a reason Jesus said to them don’t tell anybody about this until after I’ve raised from the dead. And the apostles didn’t know what that meant and Jesus didn’t take the time to explain it. Jesus should have known and I’m sure he did, that they don’t exactly know what the resurrection will mean, even though they’ve just seen it Right. He should know. They don’t have this in their minds intellectually, but he said it anyway. Why? Because now they have it in their understanding fundamentally Because they’ve seen what we will be at the resurrection. When they saw Jesus transfigured, they didn’t have the knowledge in their minds, but they had an understanding fundamentally because they witnessed it. Maybe in the moment they couldn’t process it Right, Because the gospel says I think it said they talked about what that must mean to be raised from the dead, but it was in their understanding somewhere because they just witnessed it. It was in their understanding somewhere because Jesus told this thing to them.
43:16
Change sometimes makes us very uncomfortable, especially certain character types Like for me. I hate change. Change is very uncomfortable, I hate it, but it’s part of reality, especially if we intend to be better today than we were when we first climbed up this mountain of this Catholic experience. So sometimes, embracing that change will require us to listen openly when someone criticizes our behavior, when someone corrects us about something that we said or something that we think that we know. It requires us to be open when someone says, when someone questions one of our heroes which sometimes that infuriates me, for instance, when someone questions the quality of John Paul II, I’m ready to go up to bat, you know. But I listen. Because what if what they’re saying is right? I listen, I trust, but I verify. Like I trust what they’re saying, okay, I accept it and I process it, but I verify what they’re saying, not just for a jump all the second, but anybody. We have to have a willingness to be moved to something and someone better than who and what we are today. Change is part of reality, not permanence change. Yes, change can be bad, but change by its nature is oriented toward the good.
45:02
And from my last point I’ll say this, and I’ve said this before. When I make an argument, I’m not interested in being right, I’m interested in being correct. So if I’m incorrect, if what I’m saying is incorrect, I am totally, totally willing to be corrected, because it’s not a fight for me like I wanna be right. Therefore, you can’t be no, no, no, I just wanna be correct. And if I’m incorrect, if what I’m saying is wrong, I’m going to thank you for correcting me. I may push back because I don’t see it the way you’re seeing it, or I may push back because you actually are wrong and I am not, or I don’t see that you’re right. I may push back. There may be a back and forth, but it’s not because I wanna be right, it’s just because I don’t see it the way you’re seeing it, and you’re gonna have to try harder to convince me. That’s all. I’m not looking to be right, I’m just looking to. I’m just.
45:55
My interest is not in being right but in being correct, and that’s an attitude every one of us should have in approaching life. It’s about being correct and sometimes, often, if we’re going to be better than then, if we’re gonna be better tomorrow than we are today and yesterday, being correct means an openness to being corrected. Catholics these days, the world over, are less and less willing to accept correction. It’s. I wish I could say I know exactly why that is. I really don’t know why it is, but it’s really really weird. Maybe it’s people in general. I guess that’s really what I should say. People in general are really not willing to be corrected, and Catholics are among them. But, brothers and sisters, remember, remember.
46:51
Perfection is about ongoing change, and change often means you have to let go of the things that you thought were permanent. I’m gonna say it again Change often means that you have to let go of the things that you thought were permanent, even if they’re true. For example, for example, I remember I was at Mass once and the priest told it was a daily Mass. And the priest told the people in his homily sometimes you should put down the rosary for a week and spend that time reading the Bible. I think that’s perfectly healthy advice. Perfectly healthy advice. Oh my God, they were ready to kill him, all these old folks in the Mass. They were ready to kill him. Put down the rosary. And this is why this is why here’s what I would have said to them. Well, this is why I’m telling you put down the rosary and pick up the Bible, because your reaction demonstrates how unholy you are, despite being so devoted to that rosary. So the rosary is good, right, but sometimes change will require that we let go of something that we thought was permanent, even if it’s something that was good. Sometimes it means permanently letting it go because it’s holding us back. Sometimes it means momentarily letting it go, or letting go for just a little while, but sometimes you have to let something go, even if it’s good, even if you thought it was permanent, even if it’s permanent gives you comfort. You must learn to let go, because life is about change and growing in holiness is about change and it’s about the hardest change you could ever imagine the change of your nature.
48:48
This has been a Rootin’, tootin’, rockin’, sock’em’. Oh, by the way, sign up for my newsletter. Sign up for my newsletter. Go to CatholicAdventurercom. Sign up for the newsletter. There’s a lot of stuff going on I mean good stuff that I can post all day on social media, but you’ll never see it. Please sign up for the newsletter. I’m gonna be doing an exclusive. I’m gonna be offering exclusive podcast episodes for people who sign up for the newsletter. So sign up for the newsletter. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber. It’s $5 a month. Believe me, you can afford it. This has been again a Rockin’ Sock’em’ Rootin’ Tootin’ Too Hot To Handle. Episode of the Catholic Experience. Follow me on X at For the Queen DVM, facebook at Catholic Adventurer. Please spread the word about this podcast. Help me to build an audience.
49:46 – Poor Gen-Zer (Host)
Folks, please help me to build an audience, if you think there’s any value, but what I’m doing here.
49:49 – Host (Host)
Please help me to build an audience. Spread the podcast around. Spread the word. I really appreciate it. Visit the website at CatholicAdventurercom. Sign up for the newsletter If you don’t want to go to hell signing out of here. May God be with you all. Bye-bye.
My reaction to a Fr. Ripperger video, and one from a “poor’ Gen-Z girl. I then discuss the nature of change and permanence, at it pertains to life and the Catholic faith.
Welcome to a refreshingly lighter edition of the Catholic Experience, where we take a step back from the weightier discussions of previous sessions. I share my candid reactions to Father Chad Rippeger’s thought-provoking insights on the lasting effects of sin and the path to spiritual recovery. I examine the potentially misleading aspects of Father Rippeger’s messages, weighing sincere scholarly rigor against the necessity for accessible spiritual guidance and pastoral prudence.
The discussion navigates through the intricacies of sin’s impact on the soul and the profound role of prayer, penance, and positive actions in fostering spiritual growth.
I then take an intriguing turn as I reflect on a “poor” young woman’s struggle with affording entertainment, offering a perspective that might just challenge some people’s views on society and the modern generation.
In the final chapter of this episode, we explore the delicate balance between change and permanence in the Catholic faith, in life, and in the “adventure” to holiness. The episode draws to a close with reflections on the Transfiguration from the day’s Gospel reading, illustrating the nature of change and its place in our lives.
Highlights and Chapter Time Codes
- (00:48 – 02:10) Father Chad Rippager Reaction and Change (82 Seconds)
- (09:45 – 11:15) Errors in Church Thought and Visionaries (90 Seconds)
- (12:27 – 14:12) Father Rippager’s Book Discussion (105 Seconds)
- (18:21 – 19:20) Impact of Sin on the Soul (59 Seconds)
- (30:57 – 32:26) Entertainment Budget Misconceptions (89 Seconds)
- (33:27 – 35:18) Generations Struggle With Reality and Food (111 Seconds)
- (38:33 – 40:11) Change and the Nature of Goodness (99 Seconds)
- (41:26 – 43:13) The Transfiguration and Resurrection Understanding (107 Seconds)
- (47:04 – 48:44) Embracing Change for Spiritual Growth (100 Seconds)
Videos From X Mentioned in the Episode
— Pinesap🌲✝️☦️🇻🇦 (@Pinesap3wasc) February 25, 2024
Sadly, it’s only going to get worse.
— Clown World ™ 🤡 (@ClownWorld_) February 23, 2024
pic.twitter.com/8g03Ar3L4i
